作者：吉狄马加,Qian Kunqiang
出版社：中译出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
Identity 身份试读：
Self-Portrait
In the thickening twilight, by the mountain ridge, wind whispers to a child:
When I am gone, there will be a fairytale awaiting you yonder.
Oh, babe, leave behind your name on this land,
Because this is where you will die in pride.”—Epigraph
In this land, I am the history chronicled in the language of the Yi people
A new-born baby by a woman unable to cut the umbilical cord
My name carries anguish
My name carries beauty
My name carries hope
I am a poem of masculinity
Nurtured through thousands of years
By a yarn-spinning woman
My ancient father
A man of men
Is known as Zhixia Aalu to all
And my mother of eternal youth
Is the proud singer of this land
The river that gently flows nearby in silence
Is my lifelong lover
The beauty of beauties
Who is addressed by all as Xiama Aaniu
I have died one thousand deaths
A man who always sleeps facing left
I have died one thousand deaths
A woman who always sleeps facing right
I am a messenger of friendship who comes from afar
Resurrected in the wake of thousands of funerals
I am that trembling consonant
Uttered by my mother at the pitch of her voice
As thousands of funerals reach their climaxes
These are what encapsulate the person I am
But I am more than these encapsulations
Because in me lies the age-old conflict between good and evil
From time immemorial
I am the descendant of love and fantasy
Fostered through thousands of years of fruition
I am the matrimony that has existed since great antiquity
But with still no end in sight
In all truth I am an epitome and incarnation
Of all the allegiances
Of all the betrayals
Of all that is living
Of all that is dead
Oh, the world out there, please heed my answer to thee
I am the native son of the Yi people
My Reply
Do you still remember
The path that leads to Jile Bute?
In the evening when one could smell the fragrant honey oozing forth
She said to me thus—
I have lost my embroidery needle
Please come and find it for me;
(Alas, how I searched the path far and near!)
Do you still remember
The path that leads to Jile Bute?
In the evening when something weighs heavily on my heart
I replied to her thus—
Is not the arrow that so deeply pierced my heart
The needle you are looking for?
(Oh, how she was touched and wept!)
My Tribesmen Conversing on the Element of Fire
To us you have given blood and land
You are more ancient than the ancient history of man;
To us you have brought apocalypse and solace
Exposing our descendants to the true looks of our ancestors
Through the veil of fatal uncertainties;
You bless us with affection and bestow caresses on life
Making us feel nature’s grace and understand nature’s benevolence;
Our dignity you safeguard
From the harms of hostile people
You are the taboo, the vocation and the vision
Creating a source of boundless joy
And allowing us to sing to our heart’s content;
When we bid farewell to this world
In your eyes can be discerned no trace of grief
But you would silently clad the soul of every one of us
With a costume of eternity
Consuming all our earthly wealth and poverty
The Soliloquy of a Harmonica
I am a harmonica, specially designed by my tribe,
Hung permanently on her bosom
From her innocent maidenhood
To the end of her lonely life;
I am a harmonica, specially fashioned by my tribe,
That, by the grace of fate, lies sleeping close to her heart;
I am an instrument she uses to unleash her sorrows and joys
To the attentive darkness;
I am a harmonica, specially created by my tribe,
Prepared to keep her eternal company
If she should one day depart from this world
And commit all that I have to the icy soil;
But alas, my brother, if at the moonless midnight
You hear the woeful groans of this land
That’s me still thinking of my beloved sylph
Contrast
Purposeless is what I am
All too suddenly the sun appears behind my back
Carrying evil forebodings of some kind of danger
I can see the other half of myself
Shuttling through the space above the evening and the time,
Sucking in the cool shade of the buckwheat;
I can see that my hands are not with me
But are holding up ossified flowers
In the dark depths of the earth
Allowing my tribesmen in ritual
To summon up the spirits of our forefathers
I can see a wall aging in the sunshine
All the aphorisms buried in wine;
I can see a singer, with his tongue flickering with fire,
Searching for surrealistic soils
As the rhythms of music creep and cover the sheepskins
I am not where I am, because I have another self
Who is heading in the opposite direction
A Fighting Bull Growing Old
—A story about fighting bulls in the Daliang Mountain Range (I)
There he stands
In the twilight
Totally motionless
His aged head drooping
And his body like
A reef rock
That has been gnawed by the waves
And his horns, afflicted with too many injuries,
Are like the broken teeth of a wolf
There he stands
In the twilight of the setting sun
With his eye closed
The only eye he has managed to preserve
Heedless of the swarms of flies
Hovering over his head
Or some bold gadflies
Crawling over his face
God knows where his owner has gone
And he simply stands there
In the twilight
Recalling in his dreams the mornings of the Torch Festival
In the prime of his life
He seems to hear, once again,
The horns on his head producing beautiful sounds
And his nostrils singing songs of distant mountains
He seems to smell the familiar and humid odors
Of the bullfight rings
And he also seems to feel waves of wild impulses
Soaring from the dark land;
He can feel his blood surging like tides
And gushing forth into every part of his body
Making every hair stand upright as stiff as a steel wire;
He seems to hear the audience bursting into wild cheers
Which, like many a golden deer,
Gallop and leap joyously
Across the open country, bathed in the summer sun;
He seems to see his young owner coming and taking him
To the ring, his head adorned with red ribbons,
His sharp horns holding up the sun
Crimson red like blood
As they climb over the high mountain ridge
So he stands there
In the twilight
Occasionally opening the only eye that he has
Gazing at the ring that was his one-time battlefield
And giving a groan of lament
That makes the hair of his skin, withered and yellow,
Burn like a ball of fire
In wrath and fury
A Fighting Bull on the Brink of Death
—A story about fighting bulls in the Daliang Mountain Range (II)
“You can destroy him, but you can never beat him.”
—Ernest Hemmingway
In the dead of the night
When all the folks are fast asleep
He lies in the bullpen, feeble and languishing,
Waiting for the descent of his fatal destiny
His eyes faintly open
Filled with woe and despair
But right at that moment he seems to hear
In the wilderness far away
At the former bullring which he knows so well
A young bull much stronger than he
Shouting and calling his long-forgotten name
In language foul and defiant
Poking fun at him, humiliating him, and scolding him;
Exactly at this moment he also feels
A wild impetus exploding inside him
So, he makes his frenzied charge to the bullring in the wilderness
A place which he knows so well
And along the course of his frenzied charge come
The sounds of the bullpen cracking and dilapidating
Small trees snapping and breaking
Rocks being bumped into
And the ground being pierced through
When the sun rises in the foggy morn
The old bull is found dead on the ground
Lying in the bullring where he used to fight
His horns penetrating deep into the soil
His body with deep bloody wounds as if chopped by knives
But his eyes remain wide open
With expressions of pride and smiles of fulfillment
The Hands of a Mother
When a mother in the Yi ethnic group is dead and is to receive cremation, she is, as a rule, be laid to rest in a sleeping position on her right side. Legend has it that she still needs to use her left hand to spin yarn in the afterlife.
—Epigraph
So let her sleep thus, on her right side, in her
Eternal rest of peace, turning into a long river
And metamorphosed into a continuous mountain ridge
Many people can see her sleeping there
The sons and daughters of the big mountain
Thus come to the banks which yield no sight of the ocean
But on the shore there is a mermaid
Where the liquefied earth sinks down
A reef rock looms large in silence behind
And then comes drifting an age-old ditty
Towing a crescent moon most pure
And thus she falls asleep in quiet peace on her right side
In the fresh breezes and the misty rain
Let everything be shrouded in the faint fog
And surrounded by clouds whiter than white
Either at the tranquil dawn
Or in the enchanting dusk
Everything is turned into a statue as cold as ice
Only her left hand keeps floating
The skin still feels warm
And the blood still flows in the veins
There is no mistake about that
Thus she falls asleep quietly on her right side
How she looks like a mermaid
How she looks like a crystal-pure crescent moon
How she looks like a silent rock of reef
She sleeps between the earth and the heaven
She sleeps at the heights over death and life
That’s how, underneath her body, the water in the rivers keep flowing
How trees in forests keep growing
How rocks of the mountain keep standing upright
How the people in my tribe, caught in painful sweetness,
Keep weeping, crying and chanting songs in such a manner
Thus she falls asleep quietly on her right side
And everything in this earthly world will be gone forever
But in the boundless vault of heaven
And in the immortal memories of the tribesmen
Only her left hand keeps floating
So tender, so beautiful, and so free
River Black
I know funerals
An ancient ritual for the Yi people, in the depts of high mountains
(On a black river the eyes of human nature
Twinkle with golden light)
I see a procession of people, like a river, flowing silently through the valley
I see a procession of people, like a river, producing ripples of woe
That with solemn gravity meanders through this marvelous world
This world of human love
I see huge crowds of people in procession that gather together
And form an ocean, making loud sounds by the side of death
The totem of the ancestors projected into the sky in fantasy
I see people in the funeral procession whose dreamy souls
Answer to the call of the muskets
And are transformed into costumes of pristine beauty
I see the dead as peaceful as the mountain
Listening to the songs of sorrow chanted by friendship
With the caresses of love by thousands of hands
I know funerals
An ancient ritual for the Yi people, in the deep of big mountains
(On a black river the eyes of human nature
Twinkle with golden light)
Headscarf
A man gave a headscarf
To the woman he was in love with
Oh, how fortunate this woman was
Because she could at last get married
With the man whom she truly loved
And her heart would be filled with feelings of affection
From morning till night
As time passed, day by day
The woman would be lost in fond memories
At the mere sight of the headscarf
A man gave a headscarf
To the woman he was in love with.
But the parents of this girl
Wanted her to marry another man
Whom she had never met
From that time on, she shed tears too many to count
And had nightmares too terrifying to depict
So she used the scarf to wipe away the dust of her dreams
And that was the only thing she could do
A man gave a headscarf
To the woman he was in love with
Perhaps because of the wind
Perhaps because of the rain
And perhaps because of a major flooding in the mountain
They heard of each other no more
After many a year
The woman suddenly ran into the man
At an intersection of roads leading to the marketplace
They stood face to face in utter silence
Because neither of them wanted to mention the past
And each of them hand in hand with their child
A man gave a headscarf
To the woman he was in love with
Perhaps because of a thunder in the distance
Perhaps because of a cold wave early in summer
The woman left her village with a man from another village
And she thought she could return as early as a midsummer evening
But it was in the morning of the winter when she did return
Thenceforth every night when the moon rose in the sky
She would secretly count the beautiful patterns on the scarf
And that was the only thing she could do
A man gave a headscarf
To the woman he was in love with
But for the sake of an everlasting pledge of waiting
The heaven said let there be betrayal
And the earth said let there be betrayal
But actually there were two seashores
Gazing at each other
Although ships had come and gone
The shores kept murmuring when awake
And the shores kept whispering when asleep
Until at last the woman died one day
And the people at her funeral
Picked out the scarf
From among her prized personal possessions
But none of them took any interest in it
And none of them knew anything of its story
So they just covered the pale face of the dead woman
With her prized scarf
And set fire to her twisted body
Burning everything into ashes in the mountain wilderness
The Old Man Who Makes Harmonica
Whose harmonica is this that glistens so in the sun, How it looks like the wings of the dragonfly!
—Epigraph
Verse 1
In the valley surrounded by mountains
The sound of his hammer resonates through the silent fog
Making music that causes beads of dew to fall
And the maiden groves would halt their dancing steps in the wind
If so, just let this masculine resonance
Commence its marriage of love and beauty
On the plump belly of the lake in the plateau
Under the bright moonlight
Verse 2
His old and wrinkled hands
Are like the rivers in December on the plateau
Where flow the brown cadenzas
And the undulating sentiments
That in slow motion
Cut and shape the ancient brass more golden than gold
Verse 3
A fish swims across his hands, in its total freedom
Its two wings shaped in bronze-colored waves
He raises the reef higher and higher
And causes it to clash with the fish’s golden scales
So that from his fairytale kingdom
A great many dragonflies would fly out
And cast their enchanting spell
Verse 4
The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance
Resonating in the vault of heaven
Resonating on the height of mountains above the ground
Resonating on the foreheads of men
Resonating on the lips of women
Resonating on the earrings of children
The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance
Resonating in the East
Resonating in the West
The resonance is meant for the Yellow people
The resonance is meant for the Black people
The resonance is meant for the White people
The resonance goes to the upper reaches
Of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River
And the resonance goes to the lower reaches
Of the Mississippi River
The resonance is the sound produced by the Yi people
From the time immemorial and
From the depths of their soul
Verse 5
As the moon rises from behind the mountain
And in an act of love stands rock-like on the hillock
Those dragonflies that linger affectionately
Those dragonflies that are busy and sweet
Perch on the bosoms of young maidens
And the silent trumpet flowers, all by themselves,
Breathe with their faces up toward the starry sky
Thanks to so many pairs of golden wings
LOVE can be here in this land for so long
Verse 6
If our land can hear no more of the fluttering of the golden wings
If our land is deprived of the echoes that invoke friendship
Then our world would be hushed in death-like silence
And our land would become a land of bleakness and desolation;
Nothing would be more hopeless
And more lamentable
Verse 7
Mankind is producing the proteins for life
Mankind is also producing the nuclear atoms for death
Picasso’s doves of peace
Will fly parallel to the two wings of nuclear bombers
Ove the heads of human beings
Over plains
Over plateaus
Over rivers
Over nameless deep valleys
Our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of love affairs
And our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of sunny planets
Oh, look at the dragonflies with golden wings
How they are heading toward the homeland of all human races
Verse 8
He is bound to die someday, in obscurity,
Breathing his last breath for the sake of the immortal love
By that time a swarm of beautiful dragonflies
Will hover over his peaceful skull
Their wings sparkling with stunning golden light
And the Yi people so enamored of the chanting of songs
Will bear his dead body in the direction of
The eternal sun
The Song of the Yi People
For a thousand times I have
Kept watch over the sky
For I have been waiting for
The advent of the brave eagle;
For a thousand times I have
Kept watch over the mountains
For I know perfectly well
That I am the descendant of the eagles;
Oh, from the Liangshan Mountains large and small
To the shoals of the Jinsha River
From the Wumeng Mountains
To the banks of the Honghe River
Our mother has fed me with breast milk
As sweet as honey;
The sight of the smoke rising from the kitchen chimneys
In my hometown would bring tears of nostalgia to my eyes
For a thousand times I have
Kept watch over the sky
For I have been waiting for
The advent of a great future for my race;
For a thousand times I have
Kept watch over the mountains
For I still hold in my heart the love
That remains indelible
Oh, from the Liang Mountains large and small
To the shoals of the Jinsha River
From the Wumeng Mountains
To the banks of the Honghe River
Our mother has fed me with breast milk
As sweet as honey;
The sight of the smoke rising from the kitchen chimneys
In my hometown would bring tears of nostalgia to my eyes
Gratitude to a River
Every time I miss you
I think of that river
Recalling that vast expanse of sky;
The encounter, dreamlike and heartbreaking,
Is meant just for this long anticipated moment
And I believe that our yearning souls
Have already crossed all the centuries;
At this very moment it dawns on me
That I belong to you
As much as you belong to me;
For this season both of us have waited a long time
And I wonder if this endless waiting
Is by the will of the God or by the contrivance of fate
And why joy should always be coupled with pain;
But I know that this inborn sentiment of gratitude to the river
Is bound to fill my life with both sweetness and faint agonies
To Myself
The absence of paths
Does not mean that I do not miss you;
The absence of starlight
Does not mean there is no warm affection;
The absence of tears
Does not mean there is no sadness in my heart;
The absence of wings
Does not mean there are no lies;
The absence of a final outcome
Does not mean there will be no deaths;
But this much is certain—
That without the Liangshan Mountains large and small
Or my race which is the Yi people
There is no likelihood for my mortal existence
As a poet
Listening to Requiem
If I could ever invite the sage priest Bimoto chant
A requiem to send my soul to the heaven
While I am still alive,
If while I am still alive
I could ever return to where I came
Along the paths trodden by all my ancestors,
If I could ever fulfill all those wishes
Instead of living in reveries,
If my ancestors who are now in eternal rest
Should ever ask me what my daily routines are,
I would reply with honesty
That this is the fellow
Who loves people of all races
As well as the tender lips of young ladies
And has the habit of composing poems during the night
But has done no evil to anyone
Interpretation
Come please and follow me—
Join the throngs of people heading for the fiesta
And listen to the music played on the fipple-flute and mabu;
For sure, you will see for yourself
How I lower my head deep down
After each melody is played
Come please and follow me—
But I have a request
That never should you
Interpret my shedding of tears
As a sign of being drunken;
If my manners seem somewhat strange
That is simply because of this unique language of music
So ancient but so enchanting
Come please and follow me—
Do not take me back home so soon
Because you can hardly realize
How gratified and consoled I feel
With this music of beautiful melodies and smooth scales
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